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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
AUGUST 9,
1924
THE POINT OF REVIEW
Retail Overhead and National
Publicity
W
E often wonder how many piano manufacturers in planning
a national advertising campaign make a sufficient analysis of
the classes of people to whom their instruments appeal and choose
the mediums which are to carry their selling message in accordance
with this analysis. Hit-or-miss methods in national advertising are
dangerous, just as they are in any other method of merchandising.
The manufacturer who proceeds upon the sure ground of facts
instead of the uncertain footing of fancy runs but little chance in
not obtaining for both himself and the retail merchants who carry
his products generous results for the expenditure represented in
his campaign.
MS
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MS
of the most complete examples of analysis of a potential
O NE market
is that on which the new national advertising campaign
which the American Piano Co. begins this month for the Ampico
is based. In this the general field was not only analyzed with
exactitude, but it was carried so far as to dig deep into the figures
covering individual cities. For instance, a city was taken, the num-
bers of copies of the various mediums used that circulated therein
was ascertained, and this applied to the number of families with
incomes of $2,000 and over, the number of automobiles, other than
Fords, owned in that particular city, the number of residence tele-
phones reported by the Bell Company and the number of owned
homes. With these figures the American Piano Co. was able to
tell at a glance what proportion of possible prospects for the Ampico
would be reached by its advertising, and was at the same time able
to form a definite idea of the possible sales which its retail repre-
sentatives could make within a given territory.
MS
M
&
CLOSE study of a potential market carried out on these lines
is of incalculable value to the manufacturer not only in ar-
ranging his production over a given period, but in allotting certain
proportions of that production to certain given territories so that
the dealers therein may have continuously a supply of instruments
to fulfill the demand as it becomes apparent. For when the drive
of carefully planned publicity is applied to a market which has
undergone this close scrutiny, it is almost inevitable that the results
can be plotted with a very close degree of actuality and preparations
made accordingly.
A
MS
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T is along these lines that the co-operation of the manufacturer
in the future is to play such a large part in reducing the com-
paratively large percentage of overhead with which the retail music
merchant has to struggle at the present moment. National pub-
licity, continuous and thus cumulative and carefully planned, is the
greatest factor known in reducing sales resistance. Sales resistance
in specialty selling, under which classification retail piano selling
must be placed, decreases overhead in a direct ratio with its own
decrease. No better example of this can be shown than in a recent
check-up made by a manufacturer who conducts an extensive na-
tional campaign and who found that of all the inquiries his advertise-
ments brought in and which he referred to dealers more than 80
per cent resulted in eventual sales. As every retail music mer-
chant knows, this is an extremely high percentage and he would
consider himself particularly fortunate if he could maintain it with
the prospects which are created either by his own newspaper ad-
vertising or his other means of creating potential customers.
tt
MS M*
HUS can easily be seen this close relation between the manu-
facturer's publicity and co-operation and the dealer's overhead.
And to-day, when overhead is said to have increased at a greater
percentage than has the difference between the dealer's cost and
his retail selling price, some idea of the importance of this work
can be had. Those who believe that the solution for this problem
lies completely in an increased market on the part of the retail
dealer have quite neglected to consider this factor, important as it is,
and they can arrive at no direct solution of it until it has been
given full and detailed consideration. It has been the solution which
T
has provided an ultimate remedy in many other lines of retail mer-
chandise which in their broad and fundamental aspects are anal-
ogous to the distribution of pianos.
«S
Ml
MS
Popularity of the Band Contest
A RECENT article in the Saturday Evening Post, which dealt
•*• *• with the good old days when the silver cornet band was the
chief social feature of small-town life, told of the immense pop-
ularity and the revival of interest in amateur bands which is exist-
ing at the present day. It was interesting to see that a national
medium of this type had finally awakened to what has perhaps
been the outstanding phenomenon of American musical life during
the past five years. The old-time cornet band has been succeeded
by large and properly organized groups of musicians, amateur, per-
haps, but whose work compares extremely well with that of pro-
fessional organizations. With this advance in interest and popularity
of the band has come a growing number of band contests which
to-day, in their public interest, begin to take on a sporting aspect
and which are creating a musical rivalry that can hardly help but
still further widen the desire to participate in, as well as to be a
spectator of, such events.
MS
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US
I
N New York last week there were two band contests, one of
which drew an audience of 60,000. This was promoted for boys
bands by Edwin Franko Goldman, conductor of the Goldman Con-
cert Band, in co-operation with the Associated Musical Instrument
Dealers of New York. The other was conducted in connection with
the annual meeting of the Loyal Order of Moose, and was won by
the band representing Erie, Pa. The recent national gathering of
the Elks of Boston had a band contest as its chief feature. These
are only a few of the many band contests of this kind which have
been held throughout the country during the past year or so, and
there is every present indication that their number will increase
instead of diminish in the future.
K
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\ T O better indication of the present popularity of band music
-** ^ can be had than in the public interest aroused by these con-
tests. In Great Britain they have been regular events of national
importance for years, and there they have done much, if they have
not been the most important factor, in promoting the advance of
the amateur band and in increasing the number of the amateur
musicians. Here, unquestionably, combined with the increasing
popularity of the amateur dance orchestra they are having much
the same influence.
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HIS popularity, of course, has been reflected in the increasing
demand for band instruments. No section of the music indus-
tries has shown a more rapid advance in volume of output and
value of product than have the band manufacturers during the
past decade. And yet it is not too much to say that the surface
of the sales opportunities for this product has thus far been scarcely
scratched. A casual glance at the monthly list of bands and orches-
tras just formed, which is a regular feature of the musical mer-
chandise section of The Review, is sufficient to establish that point
without dispute. The future holds a still wider opportunity if the
retail music merchant can grasp its potentialities and work closely
with the manufacturer, not only to supply the present demand effi-
ciently, but to widen it by encouraging the formation of such or-
ganizations by every means within its power.
Mf
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HE increase in the number of amateur musicians within this
country is the best of all evidence that the long and sustained
propaganda for interest in, and popularity of, music is having direct
and tangible results. A nation which is not willing simply to listen
to but demands to participate in making music is the only type
which can be termed purely musical. The amateur musician is the
vast field which the music industries must never tire of cultivating
if they desire their business to be upon a definitely stabilized basis
and to be beyond the reach of other competitive factors".